Starc can take 300 Test wickets if fit: Lehmann

Sydney, July 12 – Hailing his frontline seamer Mitchell Starc, Australia coach Darren Lehmann on Tuesday said the lanky pacer has the pedigree to take 300 Test wickets, only if his fitness and workload can be properly managed across all three formats.

The injury-prone seamer was sidelined for months with an ankle injury which led to him missing the World Twenty20 in India. He made a comeback in the recent One-Day International tri-series in the West Indies.

As the left-arm pacer returns to lead the Australian attack in the Tests against Sri Lanka, Lehmann feels managing Starc’s workload will be the challenge for the support staff.

If he stays on the park, he could (take 300 wickets), Lehmann was quoted as saying by the Age.

He plays all formats – that is the hardest part for him, managing him through that is going to be our challenge as a coaching staff and selection panel, making sure high-priority Test tours, one-day tours, World Cups and all that, are going to be high on the agenda, and making sure he is fit and available for those.

He has had a big lay-off. For him to come back and then do what he did (in the West Indies), as always, he gets wickets … for us it was a pretty good tick-the-box exercise where he got through and looking forward to the next phase of Test cricket, he added.

The opening Test of the three match series against Sri Lanka begins in Pallekele from July 26.